HBO is pulling a controversial episode of its fantasy series Game of Thrones from rotation until scenes in which former President George W. Bush's severed head appears impaled on a stake are edited out.

After a fierce backlash from critics and politicians, the network announced on Friday that it was pulling the offending episode - last year's season finale - from its rotation, freezing shipments of DVD box sets and halting sales on iTunes until the embarrassing blunder was fixed.